


Timber

by seasofgreen



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Past Character Death, Stiles-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seasofgreen/pseuds/seasofgreen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles starts having strange dreams and the wolves of Beacon Hills are hurt by mysterious forces they can't describe. There's power, out in the woods, something in every branch and every tree, every little leaf that flutters to the forest floor. A power that courses through the veins of one of their own and just might save them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you've got to move the mountains

Of course, you suck it in, but you don't know what you're doing  
They place your feet in choreographed revolutions  
You've got to move to the mountains just to see all the ruin  
Howl like wolves  
But how, how, how they like you

\- Like Wolves, David Condos

~

 

Sometimes, when Stiles can't sleep, he can feel it deep within his bones. He's still, lying in bed, but this thing inside of him makes him feel like he's flying, head lolled back in laughter. He's running, feet leaving indents on the mossy ground as tall trees rise up all around him. There's electricity in his veins, swarming through him. He can sense the smallest movement of the cicadas out his window and the raccoon that sometimes like to dig through their trash cans. A new nest of birds is in the tree outside his window, the eggs are going to hatch tomorrow, he can tell. It's like he can see them, shining bright white and crystal clear in the darkness of his bedroom. 

He can taste the smell of the forest that lies beyond their little suburb, and sometimes the scent of blood. There's something wild in the woods, and it's not so much the presence of the wolves he knows are there but the woods themselves. The wolves run, and the forest around them moves too.

Sometimes he closes his eyes and all he sees is red - red in the leaves that fall to the forest floor, in the foxes that sometimes dart through the underbrush. Red in the fire that burnt down the wolf den deep in the woods. 

The next morning, after the few fitful hours of sleep he managed, there's scorch marks on his sheets. 

 

~

 

"I dunno, man, you just seem out of it recently." Scott says, swinging his lacrosse stick over his head to pass the ball to Stiles. They're seniors now, with only a short time left to make their time on the team count. 

"It's nothing," Stiles replies, catching the ball with ease. Because really, a few nights of missing sleep is normal when your life involves life or death situations with the supernatural on a regular basis. Stiles figures he's coping pretty well, all things considered. 

"Are you sure? I mean, after everything that's happened I'm just kinda worried about you, you're my friend." Scott prods, tossing the ball. The two of them have just gotten back to their normal (or whatever constitutes as normal) routine after Beacon Hills Werewolf War III, where the Alphas tried to destroy them all.

"Yeah dude, I'm good. The Stiles is totally cool." Stiles catches the ball and lets out a whoop. 

Scott sniffs the air and pretends not to notice the lie. Something is not right, he knows it just like he knows the wolf inside of him. 

On the next throw Stiles makes, he breaks the net of the goal and some of the strings are melted. 

Scott stares at him in awe. 

 

~

 

A week later, and there's a new danger in town. But this time, no one, human or werewolf, is sure of exactly who or what it is, and everyone is on edge and tense. Fearing the worst because of what they've seen in the past. 

Stiles senses Isaac's blood from down the street before the werewolf jumps up through his open window.

"Shit!" He yelps, jumping up from his desk and scrambling over to help Isaac maneuver himself into a chair he keeps in the corner. The boy is hurt pretty badly, there are lacerations and scratches down his bare arms and legs - he was stumbling around in the cold in a t-shirt and athletic shorts. 

"Thanks," Isaac says, slumped in the corner. 

"Don't mention it." Stiles replies, and after a beat says, "Try not to bleed on my carpet too much." He's way too used to having bleeding teenagers and twenty-somethings in his room late at night. 

The werewolf chuckles, his white teeth bright against Stiles' dim room. 

He holds out his wrist to Stiles, and there's a rune carved into it - a swirling pattern designed in Isaac's blood. 

"Everything else is healing normally, but this.." Isaac gestures to the wound, grimacing. Stiles' face twists up at the macabre symbol and he swallows. "Ew!"

"I've seen something like that in the books I've read from Deaton's," Stiles eventually says, and he can almost feel Isaac's skin beginning to reform, albeit much slower than the other wounds. It's an ancient spell, something Stiles doesn't know much about besides two AM reading binges. He knows, deep in his gut, that this has to have something to do with him.

"What happened?" 

"I ran into a tree?" Isaac says, sheepishly rubbing his thumb over the wound. 

Stiles' eyebrows jump into his hairline. "Woah, dude! Trees don't typically slice you up and brand you." 

"Maybe it was the Whomping Willow." Isaac replies, and Stiles snorts before reaching out to take hold of Isaac's wrist.

He holds it for a moment before recoiling in shock, electricity different from what he's used to seeping into his veins. It's like swallowing down food that's too hot, and he bites down on the sensation to scream. Despite the burning sensation, Stiles feels a sharp edge of sadness wash over him - and it's worse than anything he's felt in a long time. Whatever this is, it's a message. Stiles isn't sure for what. 

Isaac looks worried and skittish, blue puppy eyes wide, as Stiles returns to himself. 

The mark is gone. 

 

~

 

"Look, Derek, I'm not saying that this is a stupid idea, but, well, it's a stupid idea." 

The werewolf snarls and turns to face him. They're on the second floor of Derek's family house, and there are still holes in the floor and soot on the walls. 

Since Isaac crawled into his bedroom window, Boyd and Scott, as well as a few of Argent's men, have met similar fates in the woods. They've left Stiles (which everyone assumes is because he's the human) and Derek alone. The uneasy alliance between all of them is magnified again, and soon it will probably hit it’s breaking point. 

"I wasn't asking for your opinion." The Alpha snarls, and Stiles takes a step back to avoid confrontation, at least for the moment. 

"Doesn't matter. I'm here, aren't I?" 

"I didn't ask you to be." Derek retorts, eyes dark with something Stiles can't understand. 

Talking to Derek is like trying to grab something fierce and wild and hold it down, which Stiles suspects is an apt metaphor, for you know, a werewolf. 

"Look, whatever happens in this town affects you and me - it affects the normal humans just as much as the wolves." It affects me the most, Stiles wants to yell, whatever this is, it's got something to do with me! 

"I have this handled." Derek's shirtless, of course, and he's twisting his balled up wife beater in his hands. 

"We don't even know what's out there, and it's not killing anyone!" Stiles replies, "What are you going to do, run in circles out there? Just stay here, okay? Don’t risk it."

Derek spins on him, all twenty-something years of messed up, "You don't get to make the decisions!" he barks, and Stiles is backed up against the wall in a familiar position, brooding werewolf hovering above him. Maybe two years ago he would have been afraid of this, but now...

Stiles knows that he's pushing buttons. He knows that Derek is still sensitive about his position in a pack after all this time - it's hard to appreciate the things you have when you're terrified they're going to leave you again. For all that Stiles has done for him, Derek still does not want him involved in anything - he barely wants his pack involved. 

"We're not enemies, you goddamned sour wolf." 

Derek sighs and loosens his grip on Stiles' shoulder. 

"It's not safe. We don't know what we're dealing with." Derek finally says. 

"So I'll come with you." 

"No, you won't." 

"Yes, I will!" he shouts, frustrated, and Derek is suddenly flung backwards and lands at the bottom of the stairs. The Hale house creaks, like it's angry, and Derek looks up at him in shock and says nothing. 

"I know more than you do," Stiles' voice goes soft, and Derek looks at him in confusion. 

"What?" he broke a couple floorboards on the way down, and there are gashes in his skin. 

"Whatever this is, you can't beat it in a fight." 

Stiles isn't sure if he's talking about the crazy tree or himself. 

The next morning when he wakes up, there are leaves all over his bed.

 

~  
Lydia is wearing the same sweater from the night they saved Jackson, the soft knit inviting as he lays back against her and she cards her fingers through his hair. She looks different like this, her hair loose around her face, half of it twisted into a bun. There are bags under her eyes, and Stiles knows she hasn't been sleeping well since she's been dumped into their universe. 

Her boyfriend has been gone for almost a year now, disappeared into the woods surrounding Beacon Hills. Everyone says he went to look for his parents, that there had to be some reason for his bright blue born-werewolf eyes. 

"Are you okay?" She says, and her face is open and vulnerable. It's not the Lydia Martin he likes, and he knows that they'll probably never get that back after all they've been through. She'll still go to an Ivy League, and she'll still blow the rest of them away someday. But for now...at least the honest look on her face is different from the other's faces when they looked at him. She's not afraid of what's humming inside of him. 

"I don't know," Stiles runs a hand down his face. "I really don't know." He leans back further into the comfort of her sweater. He's gotten over her feelings for her, he really has, but there's something in her that's always going to be a rock-steady constant in his life. The power in his mind is soothed by the scent of vanilla and cinnamon. They're alone in her giant house, the two of them curled up in the corner of her bed. 

Lydia ponders this for a moment. "Sometimes that's not a bad thing. Sometimes not knowing is better than the alternative." Stiles knows that despite no matter how calm she is, the fact that there's something different about him is always going to throw her. 

Stiles sighs and closes his eyes. He doesn't ask about Jackson, doesn't ask if she's okay in return, because he knows she isn't. They sit in silence for a few moments, and Lydia's hand eventually stops it's circular motion on his head. 

"You should talk to him - Derek." She finally says, and of course she knows, she's Lydia Martin. 

Stiles snorts. "You just said not knowing is better than the alternative." 

"You might be surprised as to what the alternative may be." 

Stiles isn't sure she meant what he thinks she meant. 

~

 

Dr. Deaton seems to know exactly what's wrong when Stiles walks into the office. It's been six months since his first sleepless night of being hyper aware, of making things explode without meaning to, and Deaton can tell all of this with just a look. 

"Stiles, it's good to see you." There's a puppy on the examination table, and Deaton scoops it up before it can bolt - it's intimidated by him. 

"I have some questions," Stiles says, once Deaton puts the dog back into its cage, its floppy ears peeking out inquisitively at him despite its better interests. 

Deaton looks up at him. "I figured you might." 

They walk into his office, and Stiles sits awkwardly across from Deaton, in the chair where the owners of his patients usually sit. 

"This is magic, isn't it?" Stiles figured it was when it started happening. Something has always been off since Deaton pressed the container of magic ash into his hand. 

"You could say that," Deaton pauses, like he's measuring something unseen. "But this is different from what you might call that. It's stronger. Much more powerful." 

Stiles looks confused.  
"Belief, Stiles." 

The puppy in the cage howls. 

"You run with the wolves." Deaton chuckles, like what he said is hilariously funny. "This is the protection their home gave you." 

"So, you mean, Beacon Hills gave me my magic?" 

"Not the concrete and the asphalt, no. It's an ancient ability. It comes from what's out there." He gestures grandly to the nature preserve that sprawls being the clinic, and behind the rest of the town too. 

"You're protecting the wolves, so it’s protecting you in return."

Stiles' eyebrows jump. "I...what?" 

"Think about it." Deaton laces his fingers together on the desk. 

Long hours of research, pulling out wolfsbane bullets, Peter Hale, molotov cocktails, hundreds of miles put onto his car just from driving in Beacon Hills, keeping werewolves afloat, mountain ash, Gerard's beating, keeping secrets from his father...Stiles lets out a long breath he didn't realize he was holding. 

Something else fits together in his mind. 

"Why is the forest hurting the wolves?" Stiles asks, confused. 

"I don't know," Deaton admits. "Perhaps there is a lesson, something that they think should be learned." 

"A lesson." Stiles repeats, dragging a hand over his face. Something cold settles in his stomach. "Is it for me?" 

Deaton looks him in the eye. "Yes."


	2. my head is an animal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what was originally supposed to be two chapters and under 5000 words kind of got away from me! I'm currently at work on the third part and it should be up shortly.

The forest that once was green  
Was colored black by those killing machines.  
But she and her furry friends  
Took down the queen bee and her men.  
And that's how the story goes,  
The story of the beast with those four dirty paws.

\- Dirty Paws; Of Monsters and Men

~

 

The next few days are eerily quiet, and Stiles tosses and turns Deaton's words around in his head whenever he's alone. Lesson. A lesson for him. He'd joked about having supernatural abilities like everyone else since Scott was turned, but now that they're actually a thing that exists on his person and in his mind and psyche, it's terrifying. After everything they've dealt with, it's still terrifying. Despite his long awkward limbs and skinny frame, there's something underneath that's great and powerful - possibly more powerful than any of the wolves he's met. 

It's scary. 

Stiles is sure the others know something is wrong, but the last time something happened to one of their own it wasn't taken so well. Jackson. Erica. His mouth forms the syllables of their names and it makes him want to throw up. He's protecting what he has left, he tells himself. 

Scott is on edge these days, visiting his mother at her hospital job as often as he can, and it isn't long before she'll get suspicious, given she knows about their werewolf business. Derek is always pacing the perimeters of his home like a well-trained soldier, shoulders hunched in his leather jacket and tracing a path so well-worn through fallen leaves that Stiles can clearly see it if he closes his eyes. The trees are thinning out now, and the temperature is dropping a little more every day. Soon there's going to be snow up in the hills and buried among the trees - it never reaches the town itself, no matter how hard it tries, and all Stiles has ever seen of it before the last winter he spent in the Hale house was the skinny tracks that creeped on the side of the road. 

A few days earlier, Boyd had turned up with a body full of scratches and scrapes from a fall that couldn't possibly have been caused by an 18 year old werewolf in peak condition running through the woods. He recalled to everyone an odd pain on the back of his neck before he tumbled. Derek had snarled and almost broken the door on his way out. 

They're prepping for an attack and things are as normal as they can be. It's a routine, now. A brutal, silent, messy routine that involves lots of locked doors and sleepless nights. 

Members of both 'packs' - he's not even sure who belongs to who anymore, after all they've been through the lines are a little blurry - shove themselves into his house late one afternoon after school, all of them waving hello to the Sheriff and acting for all intents and purposes like a pack of rowdy teenagers: a half-truth that is good enough for his father. 

Later they're all spread out on his floor asleep, and all Stiles can do is keep a wary gaze locked out his window. The reason for the impromptu sleepover was because they were worried about him, he knows, and honestly he has no real problem housing several lacrosse players, a girlfriend (Lydia), and an ex-girlfriend (Allison). In the dark, Stiles can see Allison's fingers intertwined with Scott's as they sleep, so maybe things might work out. For all of them. He sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. 

Normally having all of the chaos of his friends - sometimes he thinks back to the time when it was just him and Scott and snots, because while his life is harder than he's ever been, at least he got something out of it - around him would calm him. Normally, he can feel the buzzing in his nerves be swallowed up by feelings of contentment. But not tonight. Tonight, something is wrong. The moon is completely absent, and the stars flicker dimly in the dark sky. Derek is pacing his route tonight, faster and faster and faster, and Stiles feels displaced air against his face as Derek shoves past on his never-ending path. Something is wrong, he can feel it just like he can feel the steady heartbeat of his friends, piled close together on the floor to keep out the cold. He's the one werewolf - other than Peter, no one knows where he is anymore - who isn't curled up somewhere warm and safe. 

Derek doesn't want warm and safe anymore, Stiles thinks, because any desire for it was burned out of him a long time ago. 

The thought of Derek maybe just staying in with them for a night, slumped against the corner away from everyone else but still so close makes that thing keeping Stiles on edge quiet a little. He feels his eyelids getting heavy, and rolls over without even bothering to chuck his hoodie into the corner. Sleep is blissful and quiet, and for once, he doesn't dream of pounding feet and paws. 

He wakes up screaming, burning holes in his bedsheets and feeling like he could burn his entire house down if he moved a finger. 

The well-worn path in the middle of the woods is damp with blood. The woods are silent and there is still a Camaro parked in front of the burnt out shell of the Hale house. 

He stumbles down the stairs, his mind throbbing and flashing red like the eyes of an Alpha, and the wolves scattered in his living room are pale and tight-lipped. They know something is wrong. Lydia's hands – she looks like she was woken from sleep not a second before - are shaking from where they're gripping a mug covered in paw prints. Stiles can't hide anymore, he knows. It's Isaac, surprisingly, who speaks up first, and Stiles can still see the faint outline of the rune on his wrist. 

"Derek's gone." 

Stiles swallows and a light bulb in the kitchen bursts into shards, the mini explosion rattling the already frayed nerves in the room. 

"Let's go." 

No one questions him, and the wolves pile into the jeep while Allison pulls up a divider in her trunk to reveal containers of wolfsbane and mountain ash and guns and bows and knifes, the metal glinting dangerously in the purple early morning light. She ties a scarf around her neck and throws her crossbow and a quiver of arrow in the front seat. Lydia slides two knives into the strap of her bra, the points tucked down away from her bare skin, before sliding into the passenger seat. 

Stiles slams his foot on the gas and for a moment is lost in the simple motion of slamming the car out of the driveway and down the road, but his mind latches onto the sense of panic he feels from the house – his father watching him run out at five in the morning for unexplained reasons and Stiles feels the Sherriff’s mind coming up with things even more ridiculous than werewolves and forest powers. He thinks of his father’s disappointment and Derek possibly lying somewhere bleeding and there’s bile rising in the back of his throat and the road gets a little blurry and then Scott’s hand is around his wrist. Stiles takes a breath, one, two, as Scott rubs his thumb back and forth across Stiles’ arm. 

He can’t see where Derek is, and it’s scary and infuriating all at one because the only thing he can feel is a hole where his mind used to see him and he feels like that hole is one step away from swallowing him up, too. It’s a strange sensation. 

They ditch the cars at the back of Derek’s family home, and Boyd and Isaac rush out of the jeep and up the stairs – they spend more time there than any of them. Scott and Allison follow the trail left by Derek, the worn-out dirt now splashed with blood exactly how Stiles had seen it in his sleep. 

Lydia comes to stand next to him outside the house, her undershirt hanging off one shoulder to reveal the handle of the weapons tucked underneath. She looks as dangerous as Stiles has ever seen her. 

“Got any ideas?” 

“Just one,” Stiles responds, taking care in how he words everything, “This has to do with me.” 

Her mouth is a tight line. “I know.” 

“I went to Deaton two weeks ago…I didn’t tell anyone. Isaac, Boyd, my powers or whatever, Derek…It’s all the same. It’s all connected.” 

She plays with the end of the blade in her shirt and doesn’t respond for a long moment. “It’s this place, isn’t it? All of it?” 

Stiles nods, looking away, and shoves his hands in the pockets of his jacket. 

They’re startled out of their conversation by a howl, high and piercing and coming from inside the house. There’s a loud snap - Boyd knocks the front door off its hinges, and it bounces down the stairs and lands in a pile of splinters. He roars and lunges at something Stiles can’t physically see, but he knows is there. He can hear the spike in Boyd’s heartbeat, and the sudden drop in Isaac’s. 

“What-“ Stiles’ desperate shout is swallowed up before he can say it, and with no air left in his lungs he hits the ground, hard, a barely-visible Lydia frantic at his side. His vision is swimming and he can’t feel the floor underneath him. 

Allison and Scott come swinging in from around the corner and jump into the house, crossbow and claws ready and searching. 

The interior of the house is filled with sickly colored vines, crawling out of holes in the walls and the floorboards, out of scorched fireplaces and rotted kitchen cabinets. They’re growing up through the house, sucking up any oxygen they can find and moving threateningly towards the wolves and humans. 

Allison screams and ducks as Scott lunges at a tendril that sneaks around her neck. Boyd is desperately trying to get up the stairs – Isaac is still on the second floor – and is knocked back hard, head slamming into the floor and blood dripping from gashes cut into his face. 

“Get up, Stiles!” Lydia shouts, shaking him by his shoulder. She pulls one of the knives from her shirt and tucks it into his hand, pressing him up on his feet. 

His vision swims and focuses on her strawberry blonde hair, it’s pretty in the morning light – the fog around it like a halo. If he looks beyond her, all he sees is black and he can feel all of his pack slipping away from him like he’s the one moving. They’re getting fainter and fainter and Lydia next to him is just so bright- 

There’s a high-pitched howl that reverberates through the house again. It’s Isaac, fighting back. The wolves can sense his pain and Boyd picks himself up off the floor, snarling, ripping a piece of the stairwell off and throwing it. Allison and Scott are back to back in the destroyed foyer, trying to draw the vines away from Boyd long enough for him to get to Isaac. 

They’re growing larger now, the ends covered in long, sharp thorns, some already dripping with blood. Scott dodges a particularly nasty one that has Allison’s arrows embedded along the side. Allison places a foot against the wall and vaults over him, slicing one with a knife from her hip. Boyd takes the stairs two at a time, jumping over vines that snap at his legs and curl around his biceps and pull. 

Stiles is wobbling on his feet, drunk off the magic flowing through the house and short-circuiting his system. Lydia is beside him, whispering in his ear in incessant tones. “C’mon Stiles you can fix this, you can do it, you just have to believe-“ He focuses on her words and the next thing he knows he’s in the house with her at his side. Lydia holds up her knife and one of the plants runs itself through as it tries to slam itself down on her head. 

Stiles opens his eyes and blinks, looking at the chaos and the destruction and feeling the sheer and utter wrong-ness rush through his body. 

Boyd clambers up the last remaining stairs, on all fours now. Most of the rooms are burnt out and the sky is exposed and it’s been that way for years – but the unmistakable scent of something actively burning is new. He can sense the terror leaking from his pack-mate behind the closed door at the end of the hall. The panic shifts him to human long enough to shout “Isaac!” before his face reforms into a wolf and shreds the door. 

 

“I want it to stop!” Stiles shouts at Lydia, knife now held defensively in his hand, but it’s almost impossible to hear over the shuddering creaks all around them. 

Isaac is pinned to the wall, a circle of fire surrounding his feet. Boyd thinks that this must be the master bedroom, it’s larger than any of the rooms he’s been in up here and it was always locked – Derek kept it that way. There are gaping holes in the floor, Boyd can see the others fighting beneath them and streams of light that look ethereal stream in. 

“Boyd!” Isaac yelps, the fingers around his neck cutting him off with a gag. There’s a hand trailing itself up and down the hard line of his face, the surface of it molding more solid as it curls around his chin. The faint outlines of a crooked, yellowed smile are visible underneath the squirming tendrils. Issac whines high in his throat as a sharp fingernail presses near his pulse point and a woman laughs and it sounds like a lightning bolt that sends a shiver down his spine. 

Downstairs, Stiles hears it too, his eyes have turned black while the others continue hacking at the beast devouring the house. 

It laughs again and Allison bristles, like she’s heard a ghost.  
Stiles knows. 

“Kate!” he screams, full of terror and pure fury, and his whole body feels like it’s on fire. 

A laugh reverberates through the house, causing soot to fall around them and Allison and Lydia to shiver. 

Isaac’s blue eyes are wide, and Boyd takes a skittish step back, not knowing what to do. The figure pinning Isaac has hair, now, and a shape like an hourglass, and empty holes where eyes should be. 

Stiles blinding swings his knife forward, and the tendrils fall away like they’ve been melted. “KATE!” he shouts, and the more he moves the more he can feel the memories of this place in his mind – the happy family that used to live in this burned out husk. He can feel screams – children’s screams - of terror and the heat on his face. His mind clouds with venom and he’s lost in it. 

Isaac struggles and pulls against the pseudo-woman’s, Kate’s, grip and it gives a little. Her unseeing gaze is locked on the boy on the first floor. Boyd lunges forward and slices at her neck, a mockery of events two and a half years ago. 

“GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE!” Stiles roars, and everything flashes red and for a moment he can see the panicked faces of a pack – his pack, that small part in the back of his head reminds him – and he can see Derek, trapped in the center of the preserve in hulking wolf form, locked in a fight that looks more like a dance. And then nothing. 

~

When he comes to, he’s back in his jeep in the same place he’d left it, tucked into the passenger side and staring into Boyd’s worried face. Scott is nearby, is running a soothing hand up Allison’s back and Stiles can’t see her face but he knows she’s crying. Lydia is picking the last of the leaves and dirt out of Isaac’s hair. 

“I….” Stiles opens his mouth but it comes out like a croak. 

“Here,” Boyd hands him a Capri-Sun, the straw already sticking up. It’s the one of the many things always in the back of Stiles’ car, a reminder of just how young they really are. Stiles drinks it down in a gulp, underestimating his thirst, crushing the pouch in his fist and letting it float to the ground. When it hits the ground it explodes in a shower of sparks that he can feel up and down his legs like pins and needles. 

“What even!” He jumps and Boyd has the audacity to bark out a laugh. 

“No littering!”

“Have you lost your mind?” Stiles turns on him. “You just fought a crazy tentacle monster that just happened to be Kate Argent!” The name itself feels so unpleasant on his tongue makes him feel like he should wash his mouth out and his lungs heave a little. 

“Yeah, but you saved us, Stiles. We’re going to get Derek back.” 

It’s been a long time since Boyd’s spoken like this. Erica was the one who normally was on the receiving end of this voice. Stiles bites his lip.

“You should have seen yourself.” Boyd shakes his head and snorts, running a hand over his head where there are still a couple scratches knitting themselves together. If I had the power to save people like this, maybe she’d still be here.

“It probably wasn’t very pretty.” Stiles stands and rubs the toe of his sneaker on the ground, kicking up dirt. 

“What makes you think that having power like this is bad?” Boyd asks. 

Stiles nods and the corners of his mouth quirk up. “Maybe you’re right.” 

“Good.” Boyd knocks him in the shoulder once, hard, and meanders over to Lydia and Isaac. 

The sun is still high in the sky, and it’s early afternoon at the latest. Time was fuzzy when they were trapped in the house. 

Scott rises up to greet him when Stiles takes a step forward, leaving Allison to herself. She looks better than she did a couple minutes before. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah.” 

“That was…man, that was just…woah.”

“I’ve been told.” 

“I called Deaton,” Scott says, “asked him why we’d saw what we did.” 

Stiles’ brow creases. “What did he say?” 

“That wasn’t actually Kate. He sounded worried….” Scott trails off, because 'Deaton sounded worried' means things are very, very bad. 

“What was it?” Stiles asks, though he feels like he knows because the feelings he’d gotten from the weird vine-covered whatever you want to call it match up to his dreams. 

“He wanted me to tell you he’s sorry...because he didn’t realize it was this bad.”


	3. fall right back to you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may go back and edit this a little because it's a little bit cray? But I kind of like it that way, so...

You are the piece of me I wish I didn't need  
Chasing relentlessly, still fight and I don't know why  
If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?  
If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?

\- Clarity, Zedd (ft. Foxes)

* * *

Sometimes, when Stiles closes his eyes, he can see things like they were before. Before the magic started thrumming under his skin, before the newspaper obituary of one of their pack and the fake tears from classmates, before the werewolves, before the hunters, before a dead body of a girl in the woods, before the sickness that took his mother from him. 

Those memories are fading a little more every day.

“I am sorry, Stiles.” And the group jumps, turning to see Dr. Deaton come through the tree line. No one sensed him coming and it’s still so strange to see him out of his office.  “I forget how different things are here now than they were years ago.”

They’re silent; none of them know much about the Hale pack that was here before them, bonds struck tight in blood and family. 

“What's going on?” Stiles asks.

“All of you, get on concrete before you stop and rest any longer. It’s not safe out here anymore.” He casts a suspicious glance around them. 

The group shifts uneasily on the grass, like it might come up to bite them. 

**_"What's going on?"_** Stiles asks again, and a swirl of dust picks up at his feet.

Deaton, unfazed, looks up at the crumbling remains of Derek's home. "There's a reason a house for werewolves was built in the woods. In myth and legend, places like this held power beyond what any of you may think." 

Stiles bites his lip and the dust settles.

Deaton nods. "The balance of the power - magic - has been interrupted, and the forest doesn't know what to do. It’s trying to tell you something." 

"So it's lashing out at us," Lydia interjects, face thoughtful. "It doesn't mean to hurt us but there's nothing else it can do." 

 “You saw something in the house, didn’t you?” It’s more of a question than a statement.

“Kate.” Allison almost whispers, and Scott puts an arm around her.

The wind howls.

Deaton sighs. “All of you, get back in town and stay there. Stiles, come with me.”

Stiles digs his car keys out of his pocket and tosses them to Boyd. “Don’t hurt her, man. She’s not a Camaro.”

“Stiles, are you sure you want to-“ Scott interrupts, eyes flashing gold with fear.

“It’ll be okay. Just keep everyone safe, all right?” He quirks up the corner of his mouth, and Scott’s face falls into a hard line.

“If you need help, call.”

Stiles nods and runs a hand through his hair, watching the pack load up in Allison’s and Stiles’ cars. Lydia and Allison throw their arms around him for a moment, before following the wolves.

When they’ve left, Deaton turns to Stiles.

“Nothing is going to be the same after today.”

“I know.” He replies, and he can feel it in his bones.

Deaton starts walking, deeper into the woods than Stiles has ever remembered being. The further they walk, the more ominous it gets.

“What are you, anyway?” Stiles finally asks.

 They’ve managed to get to a place in the preserve that’s quiet and dark, the thick canopy of trees obstructing the morning sunlight fluttering down. Nighttime fog still lies thick on the ground.

“Something not that different from what you are.”

“Magic?”

“Yes, I suppose. But you’re something I could never be.”

“Like that helps.” Stiles snorts. Something about their surroundings is making him more jumpy than usual.

“If I told you any more it’d be cheating.”

“So you’re not going to help me save Derek?”

“You’re the only one who can.”

The words remind him of what Lydia said that night when he played her hair, her face scrunched up with sadness from Jackson’s disappearance.

_"You should talk to him – Derek - you might be surprised as to what the alternative may be."_

He didn’t want to give it much thought then, but now. Now it could make all of the difference. Their relationship was rocky, sure, but despite all of the things they’d been through, nothing had been enough to take them away from each other.  Stiles wasn’t a werewolf, could have continued the business of only protecting Scott and his dad and maybe sometimes Lydia but now - it was different. Different for reasons Stiles isn’t quite sure he fully understands.

“I’m sorry, Stilinski.” Deaton’s voice breaks the silence. “I could have done more to help you. Made you ready.”

“Do you even _know_ what’s going on?”

“Not entirely.”

“That’s reassuring.” Stiles snorts, eyes scanning the tops of the trees towering over them.

A noise like a million birds squawking in distress looms loudly over the tree line and Deaton scowls.

“Here is where I take my leave.”

The sky opens up and rain starts to fall, and when Stiles turns around Deaton is gone. The rain comes down harder as Stiles continues down the path the doctor was following, over fallen hundred year old trees and fog so thick he can swear he sees things in it.

A chill runs through his body, and he pulls his hood up over his face.

This must be it.

It’s hard to breath, the air thick and smoky, dense with something not human. The forest splits open into a clearing, though only the faintest amount of sunlight shines on the grass. The opening is sudden; the trees around it tall and circling like the pillars of an ancient arena.

Derek lies on the ground in the center.

Stiles runs. “Derek!” he calls, but a shadowy figure, green like a summer day and bright against the darkness, stops him. It says nothing, just hovers above him.

“What-?” Stiles opens his mouth, and the thing vanishes and reappears on the other side of the clearing.

There are stones in the ground around where Derek is, smooth and unnatural. They’re in a perfect circle, some engraved with the marking Stiles saw on Isaac  that night weeks ago and some covered with pictures of deadly vines. The closest one to him, directly in front of the path, is a triskele.

The green creature is coming closer, seemingly happy that Stiles has stopped moving. It reaches out a tendril and touches the bone of his wrist, wrapping around it with gentle pressure. Stiles swallows and shivers at the contact. “Hello.” The top of the thing bows its head.

“Are you…the one causing all of this?” The grip on his wrist tightens and black ink creeps around the green of the creature and it lets out a high-pitched whine, like it’s in pain. “Did you take him?” Stiles gestures his head towards Derek. “Did you?” he asks, louder.

It shrinks a little, grip loosening. If It wanted to kill him, it probably would have already tried, he thinks. It wants help.

“How do I fix this?”

The figure flexes so that Derek is exposed behind it. For a second, the shape of a woman, skin made of bark and hair of leaves is visible. He blinks and it’s gone and a voice like a whisper echoes through the clearing.

_If you can fix the alpha, you can fix the forest. We’re **all** connected. _

Stiles shuts his eyes and steps forward, into the circle.

 The figure watching them vanishes into the trees, but Stiles can still feel her. “What happened to him?” he asks, but no one is there to answer.

Derek is still on the ground, palms barely keeping himself up.

“Hey, are you okay?” Stiles takes a step closer, and then another.

His cell phone spills out of his pocket and slides across the forest floor as Derek shoots to his feet at breakneck speed and swipes at him with an open hand that doesn’t yet have claws. It hits him, hard, and Stiles can feel the side of his face throb and blood trickle down his face as he screams.

“Derek! Derek, stop. It’s me! It’s _Stiles_!” He doesn’t fall, he has a hand fisted in the collar of Derek’s jacket but the werewolf wrenches to the side, hard, and it’s ripped from his hands and Stiles slams down on a pile of leaves on the other side of the circle.

He’s feral, every ounce of painstakingly ingrained werewolf control lost. There are ways Stiles could pull him back, but they require time and a safe place and probably Deaton’s presence too and there’s no way he’d be able to get Derek to any of those. He can feel the panic creeping up the base of his spine and it takes everything he has to will it away.

It reminds him of all of the nights he’s woken up screaming.

Derek roars, and the shadow of a girl shouts in the distance. Stiles can almost see her in the fog, long dark hair, sharp eyebrows and red eyes. He hears something that sounds like _“Uncle!”_ as the wolf in front of him falls to his knees.

The form of the girl – Laura Hale, Stiles realizes, he would remember that face anywhere – stops and looks at them. Her mouth – what he can see of it as her body shimmers - is a tight line. Her eyes rake over his face and over Derek’s, something like longing ghosting through her, but she pulls back at the last second.

She nods at him, and vanishes.

Stiles sucks in a shaky breath, pulling himself back to his feet and steps into the circle, back into the fray, again. Derek snarls, his head whipping around to bare long fangs at him.

His face is twisted into his wolf form, all sideburns and sharp features and teeth. Derek could kill him. Easily. In a million ways. Derek lunges for him and almost catches his leg, but Stiles rolls away and tries to get up before the werewolf can pin him. Derek moves fast though, holding Stiles down by his shoulder. _Don’t be afraid, Stiles._

“It’s me.” He coughs out, trapped on the floor, Derek’s face inches from his and his back arching in the pain of the beginning alpha transformation. Pieces of his jacket rip and give way to black fur.

Stiles isn’t afraid. _You just have to believe, **you aren’t afraid**._

Over Derek’s shoulder, outside the circle, the green figure peers it’s head over the side of one of the trees in the clearing, watching.

It’s not alone.

The trees are filled with people. He can see Laura again, and she’s smiling at him. A woman and a man stand beside her, the woman’s eyes red and the man tall with dark hair, face scruffy like Derek’s. Little smoky wolf cubs tumble past the circle, oblivious to the life or death inside of it. A boy who looks like Peter laughs so hard he almost knocks himself off balance. The faces of wolves and hunters and humans stare back at him.

A pale, thin woman with freckles and hazel eyes smiles like she did before she got sick and Stiles feels warm like he can’t breathe.

Erica leans against a tree, red lips and leather jacket standing out. She flashes a wicked smile at him, and scoops up one of the pups as it tumbles past. It makes a face at her and she breaks into giggles and lets it stumble across the clearing to where the Hales stand. She waves at him. _Tell them I miss them._

Derek’s back is close to being fully engulfed in fur and his eyes almost drip like blood. His fangs are inches from Stiles’ face, and his nose can smell the blood dripping from Stiles’ check.

Stiles brings his hand up to rest on Derek’s chest, one of the few parts of him still human. He shoves back against Derek’s chest, pulling up and forcing the werewolf into a sitting position. **_I am not afraid._** Derek’s claws sink into his biceps, cutting easily through his thin shirt and hoodie and Stiles winces at the pain and sees white behind his eyelids but he somehow manages to get his legs under him and wrenches the two of them upward. It’s almost like keeping him afloat.

It’s exactly like keeping him afloat.

They’re standing now, and Derek is breathing murder into his face, claws still sunk into his arm. Stiles holds him there, meets Derek’s eyes, and kisses him as he bares his teeth.

  _I am not afraid._

Stiles feels Derek’s claws leave his flesh, the claws retracting into human arms that slowly slide down his own. Gentle hands hold his wrists, careful of the cuts and bruises.

“…Stiles?” he can barely hear Derek’s voice over the rush of his own heartbeat, and he lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Welcome back,” he replies, as Derek slides his arm up to gently cradle his jaw and swipe a careful finger across his split cheek. Their foreheads are still hovering dangerously close together. This is what Lydia meant, he thinks.

“I..” Derek starts, but kisses Stiles instead. It’s different from the first kiss, Derek doesn’t move his hands or tighten his grip, but Stiles throws his arms up around his neck, elbows everywhere as Derek’s tongue hungrily swipes across his bottom lip. He pulls back. “I’m sorry,” he looks down at Stiles’ bruises and cuts and Stiles hasn’t heard his voice sound like this often. “What happened?” Derek asks, and Stiles knows exactly where his mind is going.

 “Hey, look, it wasn’t _you_ that did this. It was your claws but it wasn’t you.”

Derek lets out a breath but doesn’t drop his hands. His head jerks up suddenly, and the green spirit from before is back.

She’s a girl, young and small and scared. Which is surprising, Stiles thinks, for someone he now realizes is so old. She smiles at them and says _thank you_. _Thank you for fixing me. There were bad spirits trapped here, poisoning us._ She looks at Stiles. _Can you see now why I needed you?_

And then she’s gone, and there’s a voice that for a split second sounds like his mother’s laughter and then turns into a chorus of howling wolves. The clearing lights up in the midafternoon sunlight and there are birds in the trees. It's like being in the dark and finally stepping out into the light and it's so sharp and clear both of them blink heavily in the sunlight.

 Whatever was here is gone.

Derek’s hand tightens around his and his mouth opens and closes like he wants to say something.Stiles slumps against him. “I could really use a hospital right now.” It’s half joking, but Derek tenses and swallows. 

“Yeah,” Derek says, and gathers Stiles up against him. It’s warm, warmer now with the sunlight and the heart Stiles can feel beating under Derek’s torn shirt. “You saved all of us,” Stiles hears Derek mutter into his hair as they make their way through the woods. “I should have believed that you could.”

They have so many unanswered questions and so many things still left to do but Stiles smiles at that, and feels all of the things within him sigh in content, like puzzle pieces sliding into place or stretching out muscles after a nap. He can feel the magic singing in his bones and it finally feels _right_. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes and all he can see are strong, safe, ancient trees and arms around him. No more nightmares. 


End file.
